From arrests to honour killings to cold-blooded murders, when Mahmoud Hassino saw the rights of Syria's LGBTI community trampled in the brutal civil war, he wanted to find a way to tell the world. In the midst of war, Hassino set out to find Syria's "Mr Gay" to send to an international beauty pageant. Hassino, a Syrian journalist and gay rights campaigner, saw LGBTI people targeted by all sides in Syria's six-year-old conflict. And women disproportionately bore the brunt of the violence. "With the war, gender-based violence reached a peak," said Hassino, 42. "Women suffered and the LGBT community as well. Any kind of gender expression is not possible during any war."